I once lauded the democratization of media back in my early 30s/40 during the 2000s/10s. You might even find an early video or podcast (now defunct) of mine on the very topic. But these days? Not so much. I still do in principle, but not unequivocally so. On one hand, it’s great that just about anyone can create just about anything these days. But on the other, we have and continue to create so much media on a daily basis in all of its various forms (not to mention products, but that’s another essay) to the point where it’s going to lose its value, if it hasn’t already, and become meaningless. You could say it’s become a landfill. One might even say it’s Human Slop, although Human Slop existed long before AI Slop (landfills, factories, factory farming, cities, deforestation, coal mines, highways, roads, war, pro sports, religion, government, television… I could go on, but I’ll stop there).
It wasn’t ever good or fair that creativity and self-expression were once gatekept to those who could either afford it, in the terms of expensive tools and equipment such as cameras, or who were lucky enough to be selected by a group of insignificant apes (hollywood, book publishing companies, music labels, etc.) that deemed an individual(s) worthy of having their ideas published, album produced, or appear on camera.
However, those old gates limited output. While one could argue “quality over quantity”, countless valid quality ideas and forms of expression were silenced due to various barriers (e.g. financial) to the necessary tools or gatekeeping methods, whether meeting certain criteria, bias, prejudice, nepotism, etc.
But now that everyone has access to just about everything, which is great and as it should be, the bar for entry is so low it’s practically lying on the ground. Buried. Melted, even. This has created a hyper-abundant amount of content that it’s on par for fast food and fast fashion. Create, consume, discard, fill the landfill, rinse and repeat, minute by minute, day by day. And I’m not inferring that we should go back to gatekeeping. Not at all.
Forget the AI apocalypse, we will bring it about the “end of days” when essential workers like nurses, teachers, truckers (delivering our food), butchers (cutting it up), grocery clerks (stocking the shelves so we can buy it) realize society underpays and underappreciates them compared to non-essential, superficial “jobs”. If I was a teen today, there’s absolutely no fucking way I’d be busting my ass in a grueling physical job, let alone a minimum wage one, when society disproportionately rewards the unnecessary “careers”, be it politician, news anchor, late night talk show host, pro sports athlete, youtuber, author, “influencer”, stand up comedian, actor, director, podcaster, you-name-it.
The people that work the most get paid the least, while the people that work the least get paid the most (not across the board, but in most cases).
As a non-essential “worker” and content creator myself (YouTuber, and soon-to-be-self-published author), I have the courage and candor to admit the objective truth: if television, movies, social media, podcasts, sports, books (and to a degree politicians, but that’s a whole other essay) suddenly vanished, while it would suck for the people involved, and life might be more “boring”, society would still keep running. But if essential workers vanished (teachers, nurses, farmers, mechanics, electricians, EMTs, truckers, butchers, grocery clerks, etc.) civilization would collapse overnight.
We have reached a point where content has become so oversaturated and diluted that it’s stripping away its own value. As I said in the beginning, it’s absolutely wonderful that creation and distribution are open to everyone regardless of age, gender, ethnicity, ability, etc. Yet this hyper abundance creates a new paradox: obscurity by burial. The old guard and gatekeepers for the most part have been replaced by an insurmountable mountain of media. People’s ideas are no longer being rejected or gatekept anymore by a clique of apes. They’re now being buried beneath the ever-increasing amount of content, regardless of quality. Actually, the sheer amount of content degrades anything “good” (which of course is completely subjective from one ape to the next).
It’s almost like how certain states in the U.S. are burying landfills and building parks over top of them. Eventually, when all the landfills are parks, we’ll need to make more landfills somewhere else! Society grows more absurd by the year, but I digress.
Below is the proof. I spent about 5 minutes away from working on my first book (though ironically it took about 3 hours away to write this post the next day) and entered a simple AI prompt to have it pull as much data from as many content genres as possible so we can see the sheer absurdiculous amount of content that continues to grow by the minute:
The Evidence (Estimates as of October 15, 2026):
Audio & Music
- Podcasts (Shows): ~4.58 million registered podcasts worldwide (~480,000 active shows publishing regularly). Podcast Episodes: ~190 million to 200 million individual episodes.
- Music Tracks / Singles: ~100 million to 120 million licensed tracks available on streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple Music).
- Music Albums: ~5 million to 8 million studio, live, and compilation albums.
- Audiobooks: ~1.5 million to 2 million commercial audiobook titles.
- Radio Broadcasts & Episodes: Tens of millions of archived syndication recordings and episodes across radio history.
Video, Streaming, & Animation
- Anime (Series & Specials): ~16,000 to 20,000 cataloged Japanese animated series, OVAs, and specials.
- Anime Episodes: ~350,000 to 450,000 individual animated episodes.
- Anime Feature Films: ~3,500 to 4,500 feature-length anime movies.
- YouTube Videos: ~14 billion to 15 billion total uploaded videos (~500 hours uploaded per minute).
- Instagram Reels: Over 100 billion short-form videos uploaded since launch (140+ billion views daily across IG & FB).
- TikTok Videos: Over 100 billion videos uploaded since global release.
- Twitch Streamers: ~7 million to 8 million active creators broadcasting live each month.
- Twitch Live Channels: ~90,000 to 100,000 active live channels streaming simultaneously at any given time.
Film, Television, & Sports Broadcasting
- Television Shows (Series): ~250,000 to 300,000 unique TV series cataloged globally (IMDb indexes ~270,000+).
- TV Episodes: ~7 million to 10 million distinct episodes across broadcast, cable, and streaming history.
- Movies / Feature Films: ~600,000 to 700,000 cataloged feature-length films throughout cinematic history.
- Short Films & Documentaries: ~1.5 million to 2 million independent shorts, festival pieces, and documentaries.
- Sports Broadcasts & Events: Hundreds of thousands of documented professional athletic broadcasts annually (NASCAR, NFL, NHL, Premier League, Olympic coverage).
Books, Print, & Illustrated Media
- Manga (Series/Titles): ~150,000 to 300,000 serialized manga titles published professionally (exceeding 1 million including self-published doujinshi and webtoon/web-manga).
- Manga Volumes (TankÅbon): Millions of collected physical and digital volumes printed globally.
- Published Books (Total in History): ~140 million to 160 million unique titles published (fiction, non-fiction, children’s literature, academic work).
- eBooks: ~15 million to 20 million digitally distributed book titles.
- Comics & Graphic Novels (Western & Global): ~1 million to 1.5 million published comic book issues and graphic novel volumes.
- Magazines & Periodicals: ~35,000 to 45,000 active print/digital magazine titles (hundreds of millions of historical issue releases).
- Newspapers & News Articles: Tens of millions of digital news articles published daily; billions of physical print editions historically.
- Academic & Scientific Papers: ~160 million to 200 million peer-reviewed research papers indexed in global academic databases.
- Patents: Over 120 million technical patent applications and granted patents registered worldwide.
Blogs, Web, & Digital Writing
- Blogs / Websites: ~600 million active or archived blogs worldwide (out of ~1.1 billion total registered domain names).
- Blog Posts: Trillions of published individual blog posts across platforms like WordPress, Medium, Tumblr, and Wix.
- Email Newsletters: Tens of millions of recurring newsletters operating via Substack, Beehiiv, and Mailchimp.
Interactive, Software, & Digital Media
- Video Games (Console, PC, Arcade): ~250,000 to 350,000 cataloged commercial titles across historical consoles, PC, arcade, and indie platforms.
- Mobile Apps & Games: ~4.5 million to 5 million active titles available on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store combined.
- 3D Assets & CAD Models: ~30 million to 50 million downloadable 3D assets across platforms like Sketchfab, TurboSquid, and Thingiverse.
Social & User-Generated Content
- Social Media Posts (Text & Photos): Hundreds of trillions of cumulative posts across X (Twitter), Facebook, Reddit, and Threads.
- Memes & GIFs: Tens of billions of indexed visual memes, reaction images, and animated GIFs across Giphy, Tenor, and Know Your Meme.
- Forum Threads & Discussions: Tens of billions of threads across platforms like Reddit, Quora, and Stack Overflow.
Educational & Specialized Media
- Online Courses & E-Learning Modules: ~3 million to 5 million structured courses across Udemy, Coursera, edX, and Skillshare.
- Stock Media (Photos & Vectors): Over 1 billion licensed stock photos, graphics, and vector files across Shutterstock, Getty, and Adobe Stock.
Group Consumption Times
| Media Group | Estimated Scale | How Long It Would Take to Consume Each Group 24/7 |
| Film, TV, & Sports | 10M episodes, 700k films, sports | ~1,240 years |
| Interactive & Games | 350k games, 5M apps, 50M assets | ~4,130 years |
| Audio & Music | 200M podcasts, 120M tracks | ~15,600 years |
| Books & Print | 160M books, 200M papers, patents | ~129,000 years |
| Video & Streaming | YouTube, TikTok, Reels | ~760,000 years |
| Educational Media | 5M courses, 1B stock media | ~3,160 years |
| Web Blogs & Writing | Trillions of posts | ~3.8 million years |
| Social & UGC | Hundreds of trillions of posts | ~4.8 million years |
How Much 1 Person Could Consume in Their Lifetime
Based on an 80-year lifespan (~700,800 total hours):
- 24/7 Sleepless Consumer (Birth to Age 80): Consuming media nonstop from birth to death at 80 years of age is only ~0.0000000003% of the entire global content catalog.
- Average Consumer (Lifetime Average): Consuming media at a standard global average rate of ~6.5 to 7 hours per day until death at 80 is only 0.00000000008% of the global catalog.
Conclusion
A person will never have the time, let alone live long enough to consume even a microscopic fraction of what exists today, not to mention ten years or a century from now. Whoever is popular today will inevitably be buried and become virtually undiscoverable decades from now.
I’m not saying that we should stop creating. I am many things but one thing I’m not is anti-freedom. Everyone has the natural, fundamental right to think, say, do, build, express themselves, do with their bodies, engage in or refrain from, and live however they so desire and please, whether any of us like it or not (the topic of absolute freedom is a whole other essay).
I’m simply holding up the mirror (as I always do) to the absurdity of this human-driven machine we’ve created. I don’t know if there’s a solution, because you can’t ban freedom. But recognizing the problem is the least I can do.
As for me? While it may seem like it, no, I haven’t grown disillusioned, bitter, resentful, etc. Not in the slightest. I’m actually (and not to brag or flaunt) at my intellectual peak, and the happiest I’ve ever been. I just happen to be 55 with complete awareness of what goes on in society. I’m not young anymore. I’m not blinded by naivete, emotions, politics, the news, etc. I will continue along my newfound love and endeavor of writing (what I should have always done since I was a teen) while somehow keeping my YouTube channel going (which was once my primary creative outlet, but is now second fiddle to writing). So yes, I’ll continue to create and contribute to the ever-growing content landfill, because creating is what satisfies me. Besides, the godless earth and universe doesn’t care what we do, to ourselves, each other, or to it, because it sure as hell doesn’t give a fuck about us whenever it throws an earthquake, tsunami, or hurricane at us! That doesn’t mean we should trash the planet and pollute it either.
Cheers!
Paul
[Last Updated October 16, 2026]